1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus connected to an internal system built in a local area, and more particularly, to a technology of identifying and managing a system built by installing software in an information processing apparatus, from an external system.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the advancement of the information processing technology such as network communications, there is known a technology of remotely managing an internal system built in a local area, from an external system.
For example, patent document 1 (Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2008-35444) discloses a system environment including one or more management target systems and a remote management system for remotely managing the management target systems via the Internet. The management target system may be a device management system for managing image processing apparatuses such as an MFP (multifunction peripheral) and a printer, via a predetermined data transmission line, as described in patent document 2 (Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2005-182701). The device management system manages the image processing apparatus that is a management target, with the use of a device management apparatus having device management functions such as collecting information from the image processing apparatus and updating the software of the image processing apparatus.
In such a system environment, manufacturers can provide various support services to devices installed in a user environment.
However, the conventional system does not consider a method of building systems by providing users with only software for implementing the device management functions, and installing the software in existing information processing apparatuses that are already provided in the user environments.
In the remote management system, device management systems installed in the user environments need to be identified, for the purpose managing the management target systems. For this reason, manufacturers provide users with device management apparatuses, and identify the installed device management systems based on information unique to each device management apparatus (for example, a “serial number” or a “MAC address”). That is to say, the conventional system is based on the premise that device management apparatuses are installed in user environments to build device management systems.
However, in recent years and continuing, user environments are typically already provided with information processing apparatuses that have sufficient processing capabilities for implementing device management functions. In such a case, the user environment does not need to have a new apparatus provided from the manufacturer to implement such functions; the user environment only needs to be provided with the software for implementing the functions.
When device management systems are built by providing only software to user environments, the manufacture needs to provide software including information that can be used by the remote management system to identify the device management system built in the user environment. However, there is a vast variety of methods for providing software, such as distributing the software in various types of recording media or downloading the software. Thus, it is unrealistic for the manufacturer to provide software including information that can be used by the remote management system to identify the device management system.